


The Trouble with Pacing Yourself

by inkberrry



Series: Daggers and Dancing Lights [1]
Category: Baldur's Gate, baldur's gate 3
Genre: Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27198790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkberrry/pseuds/inkberrry
Summary: Vehnrix likes to listen to Gale talk, and to watch him as they travel, and to flirt with him, and to pretend he isn't falling much too quickly in love with him.
Relationships: gale/original character
Series: Daggers and Dancing Lights [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992658
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	The Trouble with Pacing Yourself

Gale liked to talk.

At least that’s what Vehnrix surmised after traveling with the wizard for some time. At first he talked about broad things: magic, the mind-flayers, the world at large. However, when prodded correctly, and Vehnrix knew how to prod _just so_ , Gale opened up like a flower to the first sun of spring. 

It was then Vehnrix found himself leaning in to the stories Gale recounted, genuinely interested. Most featured some feat of magic or other, but they were tempered with good-natured jests, humor, and a sense of theatrics that for brief moments of time banished the dire thoughts of looming death and cetamorphasis from Vehnrix’s mind.

He liked to listen to Gale talk. More and more he spent the days sticking close to the wizard and spending the hours of dull travel in conversation. He learned Gale had a soft spot for children — one very similar to his own mushy center for the young ones. He learned Gale was powerful from a young age, was reprimanded for his curiosity and the testing of his limits. He learned how he tucked wayward hair behind his left ear, but never his right. How the sun made his eyes shine green beneath the brown. How his smile, warm and sometimes a little arrogant, often ended in a soft chuckle. 

_Pace yourself_ , Vehnrix repeated to himself, not for the first time. It was fine to get to know his traveling companions, but the pull towards Gale was beginning to border on something deeper. Something that Vehnrix knew better than to pursue.

Matters of the heart rarely agreed with Vehnrix’s better judgment, however. He felt that all too clearly this night, wrapped in his bedroll by the campfire, Gale not an arm’s distance away. He could have reached out and touched him, maybe even tucked that same stray lock of hair that seemed to plague the human back behind his ear. Instead Vehnrix just listened to Gale’s voice fill the night around them, mingling with the popping and crackling of the fire.

“Have you ever loved someone so much you would do anything for them? Go to the ends of world, travel to the Hells, _tempt fate itself?”_

Gale’s voice had gone soft, a subtle change Vehnrix picked up on with ease. The human appeared to wear his heart on his sleeve — or at least his emotions. A dangerous way to live, Vehnrix thought, but charming in it’s own way. And useful. 

“Truthfully?” he asked, and shifted his weight to one side, letting his tail brush along the dirt by their bedrolls. His had grown closer each night to Gale’s as they spent longer and longer in conversation by the fireside. Now, with the soft crackling of the flame and their nearness, he knew their voices wouldn’t carry to the others. 

“If you please,” Gale answered.

Vehnrix’s mind filled with images of the drow, _his_ drow, nestled to his side, silver hair curling around his pointed ears. He heard his laughter, light and sweet and hiding nothing behind it. The vision faded, replaced by the deep, rich color of blood splattered on stone. 

“Not even close,” he lied. 

“A pity.” Gale sighed and ran a hand through his hair, stopping amidst the tangles gained from today’s battle. When he looked back to Vehnrix he was smiling, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But perhaps it’s better that way. The stronger the love the more likely you are to get yourself into a complicated mess.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Venhrix said, and indeed he _would_ keep Gale’s words noted. Not to heed his advice, but to wonder over the experiences that spurred them. For now though, he grinned at the human and winked. “No falling in love. Not even with handsome, talented wizards.”

He was rewarded with Gale’s laugher, and a distinct lightening of the mood by the campfire. 

“Difficult, I know. But I do appreciate the flirting.” 

“Do you?” Vehnrix’s tail perked up from its spot in the dirt, twisting slightly towards Gale without its owners notice. “Should I continue, then? I have a lot of material stored up, just for you.”

“Just for me? I’m flattered.” Gale turned in his bedroll, the firelight now bouncing off his cheeks. “And coming from a handsome devil such as yourself, too.”

Vehnrix let the compliment wash over him, warming him more than the fire and bedroll combined. _No, there was no pacing himself now_. The realization hit him soft in the chest, no grand force taking his breath away or knocking him back. Just a gentle tap while he watched the delicate shift of Gale’s expression, changing from playfulness to surprise at the words he’d spoken, perhaps without meaning to. 

Keeping the realization to himself, Vehnrix continued their little game of back and forth. It was an easy task to cover the quick pace of his heart and stop the heat in his body from rising to his cheeks. He had enough practice masking his true emotions to last a lifetime. 

“Now who’s flirting?” he teased. 

“I suppose that’s what I get for going on about love,” Gale answered, and Vehnrix caught a hint of melancholy in his voice again. It was gone the next breath, replaced by enthusiasm and a spark in his eyes. “A change in subject, then. Have I ever told you about the time I avoided a pack of gnolls with the clever use of a very simple, basic spell?” 

Vehnrix shook his head, though Gale _had_ told that story before. He didn’t mind hearing it again, if only so he could let the words blend into a pleasant buzz in his ears while he slowly faded away into sleep, his dreams punctuated by swirls of magic and the occasional glimpse of cotton robes and soft brown hair tucked behind an ear. 


End file.
